Saturday, May 22, 2010

Incident follows a wave of challenges to religious authorities.

Talkbacks (59)

It was a scene Saudi women's rights activists have dreamt of for years.

When a Saudi religious policeman sauntered about an amusement park in the eastern Saudi Arabian city of Al-Mubarraz looking for unmarried couples illegally socializing, he probably wasn't expecting much opposition.

But when he approached a young, 20-something couple meandering through the park together, he received an unprecedented whooping.

A member of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the Saudi religious police known locally as the Hai'a, asked the couple to confirm their identities and relationship to one another, as it is a crime in Saudi Arabia for unmarried men and women to mix.

For unknown reasons, the young man collapsed upon being questioned by the cop.

According to the Saudi daily Okaz, the woman then allegedly laid into the religious policeman, punching him repeatedly, and leaving him to be taken to the hospital with bruises across his body and face.

"To see resistance from a woman means a lot," Wajiha Al-Huwaidar, a Saudi women's rights activist, told The Media Line news agency. "People are fed up with these religious police, and now they have to pay the price for the humiliation they put people through for years and years. This is just the beginning and there will be more resistance."

"The media and the Internet have given people a lot of power and the freedom to express their anger," she said. "The Hai'a are like a militia, but now whenever they do something it's all over the Internet. This gives them a horrible reputation and gives people power to react."

Neither the religious police nor the Eastern Province police has made a statement on the incident, and both the names of the couple and the date of the incident have not been made public, but on Monday the incident was all over the Saudi media.

Should the woman be charged, she could face a lengthy prison term and lashings for assaulting a representative of a government institution.

Saudi law does not permit women to be in public spaces without a male guardian. Women are not allowed to drive, inherit, divorce or gain custody of children, and cannot socialize with unrelated men.

Officers of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice are tasked with enforcing such laws, but it hasn't been an easy year for Saudi Arabia's religious police.

The decision last year by Saudi King Abdullah to open the kingdom's first co-educational institution, with no religious police on campus, led to a national crises for Saudi Arabia's conservative religious authorities, with the new university becoming a cultural proxy war for whether or not women and men should be allowed to mix publicly.

A senior Saudi cleric publicly criticized the gender mixing at the university and was summarily fired by the king.

That was followed in December by a surprise announcement from Sheikh Ahmed Al-Ghamdi, head of the Saudi religious police commission in Mecca, who published an article against gender segregation, leading to threats on his life and rumors that he had been or would be fired.

Meanwhile, the Saudi government has gone to great efforts recently to improve the image of the religious police, most notably by firing the national director of the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice earlier this year. The new director Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Humain then announced a series of training programs and a special unit to handle complaints against the religious police.

Last month, however, members of the religious police in the northern province of Tabuk were charged with assaulting a young woman as she attempted to visit her son, in a move that marked an unprecedented challenge to the religious police's authority.

"There is some sort of change taking place," Nadya Khalife, the Middle East women's rights researcher for Human Rights Watch, told The Media Line. "There is clearly a shifting mentality regarding to the male guardianship law and similar issues. More women are speaking out, there are changes within the government, there is a mixed university, the king was photographed with women, they want to allow women to work in the courts and there are changes within the justice ministry. So you can witness some kind of change unfolding but it's not quite clear what's happening and it's not something that's going to happen overnight."

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Progressives! Take action over this outrage! Once again Palestinian homes are being destroyed. Where is ICAHD? Where is Bradley Burson and the Sheikh Jarakh demonstrators to protest the plight of the homeless Palestinians?

GAZA CITY — The Islamist Hamas rulers of Gaza have destroyed more than 20 homes claiming they were built without permits, a Palestinian human rights group said on Wednesday.

"Twenty families -- about 150 people -- lost their homes," the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) said in a statement.

It said the houses in the southern city of Rafah were destroyed by police on Sunday "because they were built on government land."

Two more houses under construction were destroyed on Monday in nearby Khan Yunis, PCHR said.

It warned that 180 more homes could soon be razed in Rafah and urged Hamas to "put an end to all house demolition operations," adding that most of those affected were poor people whose homes were previously destroyed in Israeli attacks.

Some residents complained that police had hit them with batons during the demolition operation.

Mohammed Awad, a Hamas official, said the decision was taken by a court and not the government.

An overcrowded coastal territory, the Gaza Strip has been under an Israeli and Egyptian blockade imposed after Hamas seized power in 2007, ousting forces loyal to Western-backed Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

Dennis Blair, U.S. National Intelligence Director, is going to resign, evidently over his failure to detect terrorist plots. Blair will be remembered as the fellow who wanted to appoint Chas Freeman, a Saudi groupie and a fan of human rights suppression in China, to vet the National Intelligence Report. Blair cannot really be blamed for the intelligence failures. U.S. intelligence reports are now forbidden from mentioning "Islam" and "Islamic." The reports must read something like this, "We have reliable information that a terrorist will blow up an airliner. We can't say anything about his motivation or identify his religion." Not much to go on there, is there? So nobody knew where to look for the terrorists.

Wait and see. The usual people will blame Blair's resignation on the "Zionist lobby."

Dennis C. Blair is expected to offer his formal resignation Friday as the nation's intelligence director after a relatively brief tenure marred by failures of U.S. spy agencies to detect new terrorist plots and by political missteps that undermined his standing with the White House, U.S. and congressional officials said.

"We have been interviewing several strong candidates to be his replacement," a U.S. official said.

Blair, a retired U.S. Navy admiral, was President Obama's surprise pick last year to serve as director of national intelligence, a position that put him in charge of carrying out Obama's campaign pledge to terminate controversial programs -- including the CIA's use of harsh interrogation methods -- that had drawn condemnation around the world.

Much like his predecessors, Blair struggled to gain traction in a job that was created five years ago to solve systemic problems that had contributed to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. In the view of many experts, his office was given inadequate authority to accomplish the task. Blair lost turf battles to CIA Director Leon E. Panetta, was forced to retreat from personnel decisions, and made comments in public testimony that were sometimes seen as embarrassing to the administration.

But the timing of the announcement suggests that the administration had lost confidence in Blair after the agencies he oversees came under sharp new criticism for their failure to detect or prevent new terrorist plots. Among them were the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day, as well as the failed car bombing of Times Square earlier this month.

The Senate Intelligence Committee issued a scathing new report of U.S. spy agencies' handling of the airline plot this week, documenting at least 14 distinct failures to take steps that might have prevented a Nigerian man from boarding the aircraft with a bomb hidden in his underwear.

Blair reportedly offered to resign during a meeting with Obama in the Oval Office on Thursday. ABC News was the first to report that Obama had accepted the offer, making Blair the highest ranking member of the administration so far to depart.

New Tory chairman Sayeeda Warsi has been slammed by Islamic fundamentalists who warned she could be in physical danger if she visits Muslim communities.

The 39-year-old baroness is the first female Muslim to be given a full Cabinet position. But controversial preacher Anjem Choudary accused her of "betraying" her religion.

He told the Daily Star Sunday: "Sayeeda Warsi is not a Muslim in my eyes.

"She may look like a Muslim and have a Muslim-sounding name but she does not represent Islam or anyone in this country who is a Muslim. "She is a 'coconut', brown on the outside but white on the inside.

"In fact, she is whiter than most of the other white people in government. "How can she be a Muslim and support the military involvement of the British Army in Islamic countries?

Sayeeda Warsi has been promoted to Chair of the UK Conservative Party and has been appointed to Prime Minister David Cameron's new cabinet as Minister Without Portfolio

"She is somebody who pretends to be a practising Muslim but, from her views and statements, she is clearly against Sharia. "She is a disgrace and many true Muslims are angry that she claims to stand for Islam despite betraying Allah."

Choudary – whose group Islam4UK was banned by the last government – predicted that Baroness Warsi would become the focus of hate.

He said: "She will be attacked by eggs every time she goes near a Muslim community.

"Some more extreme protesters may take the attacks further. There is no doubt she is in danger."[from your Jihadi thugs, apparently - Ed.]

Meanwhile, Choudary and his supporters will head to Brussels on Saturday to join a mass protest against Belgium's bid to ban the burka. He stormed: "There will be hundreds of Muslims from Britain heading to Belgium to join with thousands of our brethren to fight against this tyranny.

"We will fight all attempts to destroy Islam. "There will be blood on the streets."

Baroness Warsi, who was born in Yorkshire of Pakistani parents, has already ­experienced hostility. She was pelted with eggs by Muslim protesters when she visited Luton, Bedfordshire, last year.

Married with one daughter, she describes herself as a "northern, working-class-roots mum". She gave up her job as a solicitor in 2004 to stand for parliament in her home town of Dewsbury, losing out to Labour's Shahid Malik.

Baroness Warsi was pelted with eggs by supporters of Anjem Choudary's now-banned al-Muhajiroun group, in Luton last year

She was also a special adviser on community relations to then Tory leader Michael Howard before becoming the party's vice-chairman. She says her admiration for Conservative principles was inspired by her father, who rose from mill worker to running a £2million-a-year bed manufacturing firm.

In 2005, she had to apologise after gay rights group Stonewall slammed her campaign ­leaflets for being anti-gay.

The controversial pamphlets said: "Labour has scrapped Section 28, which was ­introduced by the Conservatives to stop schools promoting alternative sexual lifestyles such as homosexuality to children as young as seven years old.

"Labour reduced the age of consent for homosexuality from 18 to 16, allowing schoolchildren to be propositioned for homosexual relationships."

We're not the biggest fans of Sayeeda Warsi by any measure – she is an apologist for Islam, peddling rose-tinted propaganda and extolling the 'Tiny Minority of Extremists™ theory, when the facts – poll after poll, widespread violent crimes against women and non-Muslims; and the enormous death toll of deadly Islamist attacks, patently do not support this.

However, she is not all bad and is certainly a far superior role model to Muslim youth than the disgraceful, terror-supporting Choudary. She does not deserve to be threatened by this grinning, self-satisfied thug and his assortment of low-IQ goons.

We believe that he crossed a line today – that his statements amounted to incitement in our view and will almost certainly escalate the likelihood of trouble at her future public appearances – thus endangering her personally.

(Israelnationalnews.com) Look, my head-in-the-sand Hebrew siblings, you got what you paid for...literally...pure and simple. Trying to worm out of it now only makes you look even more pathetic

Gil Ronen reported in Israel National News/Arutz Sheva on May 13th that journalist David Goldman was noting much rage among Jewish donors to the Democratic Party over President Obama's nastiness towards Israel.

Increasingly, folks like Ed Koch, Alan Dershowitz, Abe Foxman, Martin Peretz, and other big names in the Tribe are finally awakening from a self-imposed slumber. Along with the bigwigs, others are also increasingly claiming that they were swindled.

Give me a break! For the handwriting on that wall to have been any clearer, you would have to be part of the wall.

I will not recount all of the solid evidence about Obama's extreme tendency to gravitate towards anti-Semites and anti-Zionists--not that there's really much difference--long before he ever ran for the highest office in the land. But, a few key examples are in order. Pointing to Jew stooges that he uses as front men only makes my point further. James Baker had his Jew Boys too. So did Torquemada...and Adolf, for that matter.

If I sat in the pews of a synagogue for over two decades and the rabbi spewed forth anti-black venom repeatedly, one might just surmise that I had no problem with those sermons. Reverend Jeremiah Wright was (and is still) like family to Obama, and together with Wright's other good friend, the Nation of Islam's Louis Farakhan, were rabid Jew-baiting mentors to the current leader of our nation. It was not for nothing that Obama was called the messiah by Farakhan. Wright's church published the Hamas manifesto calling for the obliteration of Israel--among other things. Add to these many other lesser known personalities of the same ilk who are also counted among Obama's good pals. Chicago is loaded with such folks...

While popular sayings do not equate to science, there is something to the adage, birds of a feather flock together. And in Obama's case, the flock has been huge for decades. Periodically, he whispered sweet nothings to keep the Hebrews' gelt flowing. And the latter--most convinced that either Zeus or Thor would strike them dead with a lightning bolt if they did not support a Democrat (and a black one, at that)--repeatedly acted to erase the Gentile stereotype of smart Jews.

At his best buddy, Professor Rashid Khalidi's private party, it was reported that Obama spoke about Israeli genocide against Arabs. It was caught on tape. During the fight that ensued, Obama's folks managed to see to it that the LA Times would not even release a transcript. Edward Said, Ali Abunimah, and other prominent anti-Israel activists are good buddies as well. Abunimah and others have spoken of Obama's frequent attendance at Arab anti-Israel functions and such.

Obama's close associations with well-known anti-Israel politicos, friends, and advisors such as former Secretary of State Zbigniew Brzezinski, Samantha Powers, Robert Malley, General Tony McPeak ("American Jews are the reason there is no Middle East peace"), etc. and so forth were and are beyond coincidental. So, while events led then Senator Obama in 2008 to later officially distance himself from some of these folks, the direction that an Obama Administration would be heading in vis-a-vis the Middle East was already very clear prior to the November 2008 election.

And the clincher?

Long before the election, Senator Obama endorsed the Saudi Peace Plan.

He said--repeatedly--that Israel would be crazy not to accept it. It's key provisions are a total withdrawal of Israel to the '49 armistice lines--not borders--which made it a mere 9-15 miles wide at its waist (where most of Israel's population, industry, and so forth are located), and the acceptance of millions of real and alleged Arab refugees into the Jewish sub-rump State. In return, Israel would get some vague recognition and normalization. "Peace" all right...of the grave.

In other words, then Senator and now President Obama expects Israel to give up the promise of the carefully-worded final draft of UNSC Resolution 242, adopted in the wake of the '67 War, that it would finally get real secure and somewhat defensible political borders (instead of armistice lines) as it withdrew (at the conclusion of formal treaties of peace, not cease fires) from some--not all--of the territories it came to occupy in the defensive war it was forced to fight after being blockaded by Arabs, along with other hostile acts, in 1967. 242 promised Israel a bit of a buffer in lands where Judeans--Jews--have lived for millennia via territorial compromises with Arabs who are still not reconciled with anyone but themselves having political rights in the region.

The above, dear readers, is what the current flap over Jews building in Jerusalem is all about--not apartment buildings. Obama insists that Israel return to the deadly status quo ante, remaining forever at the Arabs' mercy, while becoming thus more dependent on America's good graces at the same time.

And all of this was well known long before November 2008.

After the election, President Obama simply put into motion what he clearly stated his intentions were beforehand.

You cannot endorse the Saudi Peace (of the grave) Plan and allow Jews to build in lands beyond the '49 armistice lines.

The man Hebrew Lefties love to hate (by the way, I voted for Apartheid Israel Mr. Peanut and Bill Clinton--twice), President George W. Bush, gave Israel two key letters back in 2004 when Prime Minister Sharon was unilaterally withdrawing from Gaza. They supported the intent of 242--that Israel would not be required to return to the indefensible lines of '49--and stated that any Arab refugees would have to go to the new Arab state that would be created (# 22), not into Israel itself. President Obama has now decided to toss those letters out of the window--along with President Reagan and other American leaders' assurances as well.

But, again, what else could he do if he endorses the Saudi Plan--which he does, and said he did long before 78% of the Tribe had to cast a ballot and pour millions of dollars into his campaign...which they did.

Regardless of new polls and such allegedly showing "shock" and "rage," I have no doubt that at least 70% of the above will support the messiah again anyway in 2012. They'll make up for it, in their own minds, by writing a bigger check to the Jewish National Fund, ARMDI, Hadassah, or such. Or maybe even a trip to Israel will be in the cards.

Whatever...

But let's not lie about this.

Save the rage for those same folks who will vote for Obama yet again--despite the nightmare that has already emerged. And just imagine what will happen after 2012 when he has nothing to lose since he can't run for the presidency again...

No, despite the cowards who can't own up to what they themselves did, whatever President Obama's sins are, he can't be faulted regarding honesty about his intentions in the Middle East.

The few of us who tried to sound a warning were all labeled right wing extremists and such by the majority.

Today, Hebrew Lefties are still complaining about Dubya, the guy who gave Israel those two key letters (as if he was Obama's opponent and not McCain), and are focusing upon Alaska's Sarah's imperfections...just in case; i.e., anything but coming to grips with the fact that they did much to elect, to the most powerful office on Earth, a virulently anti-Israel leader and probable anti-Semite to boot. And I use that latter term very carefully. While respectfully taking off his shoes before entering mosques, Obama couldn't even put a kipa (skullcap) on his head as a sign of humility before G-d at the Passover Seder he recently staged for his own Jew Boys.

That so many Jews refused to see or listen to what really counted prior to November 2008--and willingly allowed themselves to be thrown some timely bones instead--only shows that, regardless of how far they think they have come, they are still stuck in the ghetto, prostrating and falling all over themselves to gain acceptance and to see who will be allowed to be counted among the Court Jews.